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    A Rival from the Grave: The Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin, Volume Four
    A Rival from the Grave: The Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin, Volume Four
    A Rival from the Grave: The Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin, Volume Four
    Ebook793 pages18 hours

    A Rival from the Grave: The Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin, Volume Four

    By Seabury Quinn

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    The fourth of five volumes collecting the stories of Jules de Grandin, the supernatural detective made famous in the classic pulp magazine Weird Tales.

    Today the names of H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, August Derleth, and Clark Ashton Smith, all regular contributors to the pulp magazine Weird Tales during the first half of the twentieth century, are recognizable even to casual readers of the bizarre and fantastic. And yet despite being more popular than them all during the golden era of genre pulp fiction, there is another author whose name and work have fallen into obscurity: Seabury Quinn.

    Quinn’s short stories were featured in well more than half of Weird Tales’s original publication run. His most famous character, the supernatural French detective Dr. Jules de Grandin, investigated cases involving monsters, devil worshippers, serial killers, and spirits from beyond the grave, often set in the small town of Harrisonville, New Jersey. In de Grandin there are familiar shades of both Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, and alongside his assistant, Dr. Samuel Trowbridge, de Grandin’s knack for solving mysteries—and his outbursts of peculiar French-isms (grand Dieu!)—captivated readers for nearly three decades.

    Collected for the first time in trade editions, The Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin, edited by George Vanderburgh, presents all ninety-three published works featuring the supernatural detective. Presented in chronological order over five volumes, this is the definitive collection of an iconic pulp hero.

    The fourth volume, A Rival from the Grave, will include all the stories from “The Chosen of Vishnu” (1933) to “Incense of Abomination” (1938), as well as an introduction by George Vanderburgh and Robert Weinberg and a foreword by Mike Ashley.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNight Shade
    Release dateSep 25, 2018
    ISBN9781597809696

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      A Rival from the Grave - Seabury Quinn

      The Chosen of Vishnu

      "CORDIEU, FRIEND TROWBRIDGE, I am miserable as an eel with the stomach-ache; let us seek the air, pleaded Jules de Grandin. One little minute more of this and my grandsire’s only grandson will perish miserably by asphyxia."

      I nodded sympathetically and began shouldering my way toward the conservatory. Once a year all Harrisonville which claimed the faintest right to see itself in the society columns of the local papers attended the junior League’s parade at the Bellevue-Standish, and this season’s orgy had been even worse than usual. As special added attractions there had been several foreign consuls-general and an Indian princeling, round whom the women fluttered like flies around a freshly spilled sirup-pot, and the scent of flowers, of conglomerate perfumes and faintly perspiring humanity was almost overpowering. I was heartily glad when we finally succeeded in forcing our way to the cool semi-darkness of the deserted conservatory, where we could find sufficient elbow room to light a cigarette, and take a dozen steps without imperiling our feet beneath a wild stampede of high-heeled slippers.

      "Eh bien, de Grandin drew a gulp of smoke gratefully into his lungs, me I think I shall remain here till the ceremonies are concluded; sooner would I spend the night right here than face that crowd to seek my hat and—ah, my friend, is she not the chic, belle créature?" He drove his elbow into my ribs and nodded toward the girlish form emerging from behind the great illuminated fishbowl at the entrance of the corridor.

      He had not over-emphasized the facts. "Belle she surely was, and chic" as well. Not very tall, but very slim, her figure was accentuated by a black gown of transparent velvet which reached the floor and swirled about her insteps as she walked. Her eyes were large and wide and far apart, lustrous as purple pansy petals. Her hair, rich blue-black and glistening with brilliantine and careful brushing, was stretched without a ripple to the back of her neck. Her lips were full and darkly made up. Her teeth were very white and very even. Her skin, untouched by color, was faintly tan in shade, and shone as though it were a little moist. As she stepped we saw her heels were extremely high and her stockings sheer and dark. There was something sober, thoughtful, slightly frightened, I thought, in her expression as she faced the flower-and-fern lined corridor and paused a moment beside a lily-studded fountain, then half turned to retrace her steps.

      Abruptly she halted, one slender, red-nailed hand half raised to her breast, as though to still the beating of a suddenly tumultuous heart, and stood at gaze, like a living creature frozen into marble at sight of Medusa’s head.

      Instinctively I followed the direction of her fascinated gaze and wondered at the terror which was limned upon her face. The man who had just stepped into the corridor was not particularly impressive. Undersized, extremely dark, slender, black hair, pomaded till it lay upon his scalp like a skullcap of black satin, he looked as though he would have been much more at home in Harlem than in our fashionable suburban hotel. Shirt studs and waistcoat buttons gleamed with brilliants, and against the lower edge of his evening coat was pinned a gem-encrusted decoration which glittered with a greenish glint in the conservatory’s subdued illumination. Rather like a figure from a fancy-dress party I thought him till I saw his eyes. They made a difference; all the difference in the world, for the whole appearance of the man seemed altered instantly when one gazed into them. In odd contrast to his swarthy face, they were light in shade, cold, haughty, ophidian—like frozen agates—and though they were almost expressionless, they seemed to take in everything in the room—to see without beholding, and make a careful note of all they saw.

      Apparently oblivious to the half-distracted girl, the man advanced, and, almost abreast of her, turned his freezing, haughty glance in her direction.

      The result was devastating. Slowly, like something in a slow-motion picture, the girl bent forward, dropped gently to her knees, raised her arms above her head and bent her wrists till her right palm faced left, and the left palm right, then pressed her hands together and bowed her head demurely.

      For a moment she knelt thus; then, still with that slow, deliberate, melting motion, she bent forward to the floor and touched her forehead to the tiles, stretched out her body slowly till she lay in utter prostration, feet straight out, ankles close together, hands extended to fullest reach before her, palms upward, as though inviting him to step upon them.

      "Grand Dieu!" I heard de Grandin murmur, and caught my breath with a gasp of utter stupefaction as the dark-skinned man paused a moment in his step, glanced down upon the groveling girl with a look of loathing and disgust and spat upon her.

      We saw her slender body quiver, as from a blow, as his spittle struck her on the neck, and:

      "Monsieur, your face offends me and your manners are deplorable," said Jules de Grandin softly, emerging from behind the stand of potted palms where he had stood and driving a small, hard fist into the other’s arrogant face.

      The man staggered backward, for he was lightly made, and though de Grandin was of slender stature, his strength was out of all proportion to his size, and when cold fury lay behind his blows they were little less than deadly.

      "Mais oui, the little Frenchman continued, advancing with a quick light spring, your features are detestable, Monsieur, and spitting serpents are anathema to me. Thus I do to them, and thus—and thus—" With a speed and force and sureness which any bantamweight fighter might well have envied, he drove successive vicious punches to the other’s face, striking savagely till blood spurted from the beaten man’s cut lips and battered nose, and the cold, insolent eyes grew puffy underneath his stabbing blows. At last:

      A bath may cool your ardor and teach you better manners, one may hope! the Frenchman finished, driving a final swift uppercut to the other’s chin and sending him toppling into the placid waters of the goldfish pool.

      Wha—what’s going on here? a voice demanded and a tall young man rushed into the conservatory. What—

      "Only a slight lesson in the niceties of etiquette, Monsieur," de Grandin answered casually, but stepped quickly back to take advantage of the intervening space if the other should attack him.

      But— the man began, then ceased abruptly as a sobbing, pleading cry came from the girl upon the floor:

      Edward—Karowli Singh!

      "Karowli Singh? Here? Why that’s impossible! Where?"

      Here, in this hotel; this room—

      Yes, by blue, in the fish-pond! interjected Jules de Grandin, who had been turning his quick, quizzical glance from one of them to the other during their disjointed colloquy. But do not be disturbed. He will remain in place until I give him leave to move, unless by any chance you would converse with him—

      "Oh, no, no; no! the girl broke in. Take me away, please."

      Perfectly, the Frenchman agreed with a quick, elfin smile. "Take her away, Monsieur. Me, I shall remain behind to see he raises no disturbance."

      The man and girl turned to leave, but at the second step she faltered, leaned heavily against her escort, and would have fallen had he not caught her in his arms.

      She’s fainted! cried the young man. Here, help me get her through the crowd. The house physician—

      "Ah bah! de Grandin interrupted. The house physician? Pouf! I am Doctor Jules de Grandin and this is my good friend and colleague, Doctor Samuel Trowbridge, both at your instant service. If we can be of help—"

      Can you get us out of here? the young man asked.

      "But naturally, Monsieur. We have but to follow our noses. Our coats and hats may stay here for a time. Doctor Trowbridge’s car waits without and we can drive all quickly to his office; then, when Mademoiselle is restored, I shall return and ransom them from the estimable young female bandit who presides at the check room. Voilà tout."

      THE GIRL WAS CONSCIOUS, but strangely passive, lethargic as a fever convalescent, when we readied my house. She walked with trembling, halting steps, supported by her escort’s arm, and more than once she stumbled and would have fallen had he not held her up.

      What this one needs is conversation, de Grandin whispered to me as we went down the hill. Take them into the study, and I shall administer a stimulant, then encourage her to talk. She is beset by fear, and a discussion of her trouble will assist her to regain her mental poise. You agree?

      I hardly know quite what to say, I returned. It was the most outlandish thing—

      Outlandish? You have right, my friend, he agreed with a smile. It was—how do your so estimably patriotic Congressmen call it?—un-American, that reverence which she made that ape-faced one at the hotel. There is indubitably the funny business here, my old one. Oh, yes.

      THE GIRL, THE BOY and I gazed at each other with mutual embarrassment. The incident I had witnessed at the hotel was so utterly bizarre, so degradingly humiliating to the woman, that instinctively I shrank from looking at her, as I might have done had I unwittingly surprised her in the act of bathing. The only one in full possession of his wits seemed Jules de Grandin, who was not only master of himself, but of the situation. Wholly at his ease, he administered a dose of Hoffman’s anodyne to the girl, then give her a cigarette, extending his silver pocket lighter to her with the same gay courtesy he would have shown to any usual visitor. At length, when she had set her cigarette alight and her escort’s cigar was also properly ignited, he dropped into a chair, crossed his knees, and turned a frank, engaging smile upon the strangers.

      "Mademoiselle, Monsieur, he began in an easy conversational tone, as I have told you, I am Doctor Jules de Grandin. But medicine is but an incident with me. In the course of my career it has fallen to my lot to serve my country with sword or wits in every quarter of the globe." He paused a moment, smiling lightly at the visitors, both of whom regarded him with somber, questioning glances. Plainly, they were in no mood for conversation, but more than unresponsiveness was needed to check the loquacious little Frenchman’s flow of talk.

      During the great war, of which you have unquestionably heard, though you were only children when it happened, I had occasion to visit India, he pursued, and this time he drew fire, for the girl shuddered, as if with a chill, and the big young man set his lips with sudden grimness, yet neither of them spoke.

      But yes, of course, de Grandin rattled on, gazing with every sign of approval at the polished tip of his patent leather evening pump, "there was a time when our then allies, the British, had good reason to doubt the loyalty of one of their vassal native princes. He was more than half suspected of carrying on an intrigue with the boches; certainly he was known to be employing German drillmasters for the tatterdemalion disorganization he liked to call his army, and at any moment he might have loosed his tribesmen on the Indian frontier, causing much annoyance to the British. Oh, yes.

      British spies could not get to him, but his activities must be known, and so, ‘Jules de Grandin,’ said the French Intelligence, ‘you will please dye your hair and mustache and raise a beard, which you will also dye, then you will go to Dhittapur’—consternation, blank surprise, showed on the faces of his hearers, but de Grandin kept on evenly, still admiring the toe of his pump—"‘you will go to Dhittapur, posing as a French renegade, and seek service in the army of his Highness, the Maharajah.’

      "Tiens, when one is ordered, one obeys, my friends. I went to that benighted country, I served the squint-eyed son of Satan who ruled over it; more, I met and came to know his charming little son and heir—as diabolical a young imp as ever plucked the plumage from a screaming parrot or tortured a caged and helpless leopard with hot irons. His name, unless I am mistaken, was Karowli Singh."

      Karowli Singh! echoed the girl in a thin, frightened whisper.

      "Précisément, Mademoiselle, and the opportunity I had tonight to drive my fist into his most unpleasant face was grateful as a drink of water in the desert, I assure you." He paused a moment, then:

      "Now that we have established rapport by identifying mutual friendships, perhaps you will be good enough to tell me how and when it was you first became acquainted with the so charming gentleman, Mademoiselle?"

      There was a long moment’s silence; then, in a voice so low that we could barely hear it: I belonged to him, the girl replied.

      "Ah? de Grandin brushed the trimly waxed ends of his little blond mustache. You were—"

      "I was a bayadère, or woman of the inner temple, she broke in. At the age of five I was affianced to Vishnu, Preserver of the Universe; at seven I was married to him. I was a ‘chosen one of the Sacred Bulls of Yama.’ I and six other little girls were stripped and tied between the horns of the temple’s sacred bulls, and the animals were then goaded into fighting each other. When they drove their heads together, their sharp, brass-tipped horns cut through the bodies of the children tied to them as though they had been bayonets. Of the seven ‘choices’ I was the only one alive when the cattle had done fighting; so my candidacy for marriage to the god was divinely ordained.

      "For another seven years, until I was a full-grown woman according to Hindoo reckoning, I was schooled in the learning of the temple women; for hours each day I practised the devotional dances, working till my muscles ached as though with rheumatism and the skin was braised from my soft, bare feet. Then I learned the gesture dance, which requires years of practise before the performer learns to assume the nine hundred and forty-three symbolic postures and hold them with the rigidity of a statue; last of all I learned the Dance of the Seven Enticements, which is a combination of the Arabian danse du ventre and contortionism, the dancer being required not only to swing shoulders, hips, breasts and abdomen in time to the rhythm of the music, but to bend her head backward or forward to the floor without lifting either heels or toes or assisting herself with her hands. I also learned to play upon the sitar and tambourine and to sing the adorations, or love songs, which only women of the inner temple are taught, for they are experts in the arts of love and supply the most exclusive clientele in India.

      "Nautchis—women of the outer temple—are merely deva-dasis, or slaves of the gods, and are plentiful in India, every tourist sees them; but naikin bayadères are never seen by the public. They keep strict purdah, for they are wives of the gods whose shrines they serve, and on the rare occasions when they appear outside the temple are as closely veiled and carefully watched as ranis of the mightiest maharajahs. For a low-caste man to touch one of them, or even to look upon her unveiled face, is a capital offense. Not even every Brahmin may approach them; only the higher orders of the priesthood and those of royal blood may speak to them without being first spoken to."

      Her full, sad mouth curved in a sarcastic smile as she continued: "But the priests do not spend years in educating these women merely for the glory of the gods—bayadères are not like Christian nuns; far from it. When the naikin has served her long novitiate and been examined for proficiency in every branch of her learning, she is ready for service. For a stipulated fee she may be hired to dance and sing at the sumptuous entertainments of the rajahs; for a greater sum she may be sent to the zenana of some prince to remain there as long as he pays the yearly rental agreed upon with the priests. But never can she be married, for she is already a wife, wedded to the god whose temple she serves.

      "I always hated the temple and the temple life. The priests were foul beasts; lazy, drunken, addicted to drugs and every imaginable form of vice; there was an undercurrent of nastiness running through every word and act and thought inside the temple, and against this I rebelled, but only instinctively, for my background was purely Hindoo, and all my experience since babyhood had been in the poisonous atmosphere of the inner temple.

      "Then, one day when I was still a little girl, according to Western ideas, I was taken with some older temple women to assist at a nautch given by a great noble, for already my voice had developed and I was clever at playing on the sitar and singing the simpler ghazals, or love songs. Traffic was impeded by a herd of sacred cows moving through the street, and our camel-carriage stopped by a corner where a missionary sahib was preaching. He talked in the vernacular, and my childish ears drank up his words as sunburned sand absorbs the grateful rain-drops. Never before had I dreamed there could be such a god as that he spoke of. The gods I knew were cruel, lecherous and vengeful; this god the Englay sahib told of was gracious, kind and merciful, ‘desiring not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should leave his wickedness and lead a new life,’ he said—and every god I knew wreaked punishment on his followers through countless incarnations. At last the missionary finished and pronounced his benediction in a foreign tongue. The words were strange to me, but the syllables clung indelibly in my childish memory: ‘. . . by Thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.’

      "Then the traffic was resumed and our cart moved on, but the seed of rebellion had been sown in my heart.

      "When I was fourteen it was arranged that I should go to the zenana of Karowli Singh, the new Maharajah of Dhittapur, for he had seen me dancing in the temple and desired me; desired me so much that he paid the priests an annual rental of 30,000 rupees—nearly $10,000—for me in advance.

      "The temple slaves dressed me in my finest clothes, put emerald ear-rings in my ears and a golden flower in my nose, loaded my arms and wrists and ankles with bangles and put a ring on every toe and finger. Then I was ready for my royal master—I, a child of fourteen who for seven years had been a wife, yet never felt a man’s caress. I was supposed to be elated at my fortune, and they had no thought that I would try to run away. The fact that I was destined for the harem of a rajah was considered sufficient protection; so only one old woman, too old for other service, was sent with me as ayah.

      "We had almost reached the limits of the city, and my ayah had put back the curtains of our bullock cart for air, when I chanced to see a tall, broad-shouldered sahib walking by the road. I had not seen many sahibs in my life, but this one seemed strangely familiar to me, for while he wore the white-drill clothes and pith sun-helmet common to every feringhi, his collar was different, and instead of a cravat he wore a little patch of black cloth on his chest. I recognized him; he was a missionary sahib like the one whose sermon had so thrilled me years before.

      "Before the old woman or the gharry-wallah could restrain me I had leaped from the bullock cart and rushed up to the missionary sahib. I knew just what to say, for years I had repeated those unknown but thrilling foreign words in my temple cell. I flung myself down before him, taking the dust from his feet and crying:

      "‘. . . defend us from all perils and dangers, through Jesus our Lord. Amen!’"

      "The old ayah ran screaming in protest, and the gharry-wallah joined her and would have dragged me back, but the Englay sahib carried a blackthorn stick and beat them off with it. Even when the gharry-wallah drew a knife the sahib did not let me go, but struck the knife out of his hand and beat him till he squealed for mercy.

      "Then he took me to a mission school and I was baptized as Madeline Kamla, and was no longer Kamla Devi, the temple woman.

      "Karowli Singh was furious. He demanded return of the rental he had paid for me, but the priests refused to refund it unless he delivered me to them, and so a feud was started.

      "But now I was in double peril, for both the maharajah and the priests desired me. The prince’s dignity had been affronted by my flight, and he could not regain the 30,000 rupees rental he had paid till he delivered me at the temple. The priests demanded my return that they might torture me to death as a warning to other bayadères, for if other temple women followed my example and escaped, they would lose much money.

      "But since I had been married to the great god Vishnu and made a naikin bayadère they could not put me to death ceremoniously unless I voluntarily relinquished my rank and titles. They might poison or stab me, or hide a scorpion in my bed, or the maharajah’s servants might kidnap or murder me, but only my voluntary relinquishment of my status as a wife of Vishnu could give the priests the right to torture me to death. Still, if they could once get hold of me I knew that some way would be found to make me say the ancient formula of renunciation: ‘Do with me as thou wilt.’ For a temple woman to forsake her divine husband and her marriage vows and run away, especially to become a Christian, is an unforgivable sin, you know, and merits death by torture here and unending torment throughout the Seven Eternities hereafter.

      "They tried to capture me by every means they knew. Twice emissaries from the maharajah attempted to abduct me from the mission, temple girls were sent as pretended converts to the school with poisoned sweetmeats, and even with deadly little kraits, or dust-snakes, concealed in leather bags to be put into my bed; once the mission was set afire. Finally the priests brought pressure on the British raj, and threatened an uprising if I were not returned.

      The British did not want to give me up, but it is their policy never to interfere with the religion of the country, and my shelter by the mission was making it very difficult for the government. Finally it was decided that I would be safer in America, where chance of pursuit by the priests or maharajah seemed impossible, so it was decided to send me here; but the question of my entry offered fresh difficulties. Hindoos are not eligible for naturalization, though ethnically we are as much members of the white race as the English and Germans, and the quota barriers prevented my entry otherwise. I could come as a student, but when my studies were completed I should have to return, and that would mean my certain death. Finally—a flush mantled her olive cheeks—finally it was decided I might enter as a non-quota immigrant, if I came as—

      She paused, and for the first time her escort spoke:

      If she came in as my wife. It was my father, the Rev. Edward Anspacher, to whom she first appealed, and I met her at the mission three years later when I went out to visit Dad after my graduation from Rutgers. I don’t know how it was with Madeline—yes, I do, too, she’s told me!—it was love at first sight between us, and I’d have married her and brought her home with me even if that pack of hell-hounds hadn’t been yapping at her heels. What I can’t understand, though, is whether it’s just an evil chance that brings Karowli Singh here, or whether he found out where we lived and came here on purpose to get Madeline. It doesn’t matter much now, though; he’s seen her.

      But why did you—er—bow to him when you saw him tonight? I asked the girl. Surely, you’re so changed, with your Western clothes and the passage of time, that you might have ignored his presence, and the chances are he’d never have recognized you.

      She gave me a quick, sad smile. Doctor Trowbridge, she replied, during the most impressionable period of my life I was under the utter domination of the priests, having no thought or word or act save such as they dictated. I believed implicitly in their power and in the power of the gods of India. Five years among Americans is not enough to overcome the training of a lifetime, and when a person has been reared in the knowledge that a certain class of others hold her life at the dictate of their slightest whim, and when she has been compelled to prostrate herself and kiss the earth before those others—why, when I came suddenly face to face with Karowli Singh tonight, my early training came over me with a sudden rush, and automatically I made him the ‘sublime obeisance’ with which I had been taught to greet priests and rajahs in my childhood.

      It was very quiet in the study as the girl ceased speaking. To me there was something horrible in the matter-of-fact way in which she had related her bizarre story. She was little more than a child, and all the dreadful things of which she told had occurred since the Armistice, yet—

      "Eh bien, Monsieur, de Grandin’s practical comment broke through my thought, it seems they have long memories—and arms—these genial gentlemen of Dhittapur. I gave you better advice than I realized when I suggested that you leave your wraps and come with us. If you will excuse me I shall go now and retrieve them. You will await my return?" He rose with a bow, ascended the stairs to his room and employed himself with some mysterious business for a few moments.

      I shall return anon, he announced from the front hall. "Do you entertain Madame and Monsieur, Friend Trowbridge, and on no account permit yourselves to be enticed from the house till I come back."

      Not much fear of that, I assured the visitors as the door banged to behind my little friend. It’s nearly morning, and my practise is scarcely the kind which brings casual patients to—

      A sudden battering-ram knocking at the front door interrupted, and, though my declaration of intention was still uncompleted, I rose with the medical man’s ingrained habit to answer the summons.

      Be careful! warned the girl as I went down the hall. Do not open the door, Doctor; look through the window, first, for—

      Some secret warning in my inner consciousness bade me follow her advice and I put back the curtain of the door’s sidelight and peered out on the darkened porch.

      Tight fingers seemed to close about my throat as I looked, and involuntarily I shook my head to clear my vision. There, crouched upon the door-mat, green eyes shining with malevolent anticipation, was a great, striped tiger, and even as I looked, I saw the beast put forth a pink tongue and lick its chaps. Good heavens— I began, but:

      "Kai hai!" the girl called shrilly as she peered across my shoulder at the crouching beast. Followed a flood of high-pitched, singsong phrases, screamed rather than spoken, and, accompanying them, the girl’s slim hands seemed to trace invisible figures in the air.

      Amazement gave way to something like superstitious awe in my heart as I saw the gigantic beast slowly become wraith-like, transparent, finally vanish completely, like a slow fade-out in a motion picture.

      Wha—what was it? I queried. Was there really something there, or—

      Madeline Anspacher was trembling violently, and her pale-olive face seemed to have gone paler, making her large, purple eyes seem bigger by comparison, but she took control of herself with an effort as she answered: Yes, it was there, ready to spring on you if you unbarred the door; yet—

      But I saw it fade away, I cut in. Was it really a tiger or was it just—

      I can not explain, she answered quickly. "You have seen yogis do their magic; seen them make a whole tree grow from a planted seed in a minute or so, perhaps? How they do it no one knows, but I have seen it done many times and I have heard some of their charms. The chant I recited was the one they use to make a vision vanish. I do not know the words they use to conjure up a spell, nor do I think that what I said to make it go away would have been effective if the guru had been near by; so he must be working his magic from a distance, perhaps as far away as—"

      Ron, ron, ron,

      Le bleu dragon . . .

      Singing blithely, though a trifle bawdily, Jules de Grandin came up the path, his arms laden with our visitors’ outdoor wraps.

      Sacré de nom,

      Ron, ron, ron . . .

      De Grandin! I cried, caution thrown away as I unlatched the door and leaped out on the porch. Look out, de Grandin, the tiger’s there, and—

      Something tawny-black and horribly agile, a great cat-thing, seemed suddenly to materialize out of the cold morning air and launch itself like a bolt of living fire at my small friend, and my warning changed to a shout of inarticulate terror as I looked.

      But, astonishingly, the pouncing beast seemed stopped in mid-spring, as though it came in contact with a barricade of invisible steel bars, and the little Frenchman proceeded on his way as imperturbably as though out for an early-morning stroll. "Do not disturb yourself, mon vieux, he bade me almost casually, it is a harmless pussy-cat they send—harmless as long as I am possessed of this! he added, unclasping his right hand to display a crumpled marigold blossom in his palm. For every poison there is an antidote, and this is that which makes them powerless, n’est-ce-pas, petite?" he smiled engagingly at Mrs. Anspacher.

      The girl nodded. It is a very holy flower in India, she admitted. We—the temple women—used to wear wreaths of it on our heads, and garlands of it are draped on Vishnu’s idols; but I never understood its real significance or—

      "Tiens, how many Christians know the meanings of the prayers they say? he interrupted with an elfin grin. It is enough that the flower possesses virtue to protect its bearer against such empty magic as these old ones make. However—he stepped inside the house, deposited his burden on the hall table and invited our attention to an inch-long tear in his overcoat—this was no empty gesture, mes amis."

      Great Scott! I exclaimed. What did it?

      A knife, he answered easily. This, to be specific. From his pocket he produced a double-edged dagger, a frightful-looking thing with heavy blade six inches long, wider at tip than base, its shaft set in a hilt of hammered brass.

      A Pathan throwing-knife! exclaimed the girl.

      "Perfectly, Madame, a very useful tool for liberating the soul of one whose existence annoys you, he agreed. I was leaving the hotel, having no more thought of assault than the simple, innocent lamb has of mistreatment from the butcher, when whish! I feel the kick of this thing in my back, and the breath is all but knocked from out my lungs. Also, at the same time I hear the beat of running feet. They are not brave, those ones. No, they feared to stand and try conclusions with Jules de Grandin, even though they thought he had been killed to death by their so treacherous knife-in-the-back. Yes."

      But, great heavens, man! I expostulated. That hole in your coat is three inches below and three inches to the right of your left scapular. However did it miss your heart?

      By not reaching it—or my hide, either, he answered with a chuckle. Divesting himself of overcoat and jacket, he displayed a close-fitting, sweater-like garment of finely woven steel chains above his waistcoat. Jules de Grandin is the simpleton of no one, he informed us gravely. "When I set forth tonight I said to me, ‘Jules de Grandin, only an exceedingly brave man or an exceedingly chuckle-headed fool goes into danger unprepared, and the chances of his being a fool are far greater than of his being merely brave. Jules de Grandin, is it that you are an imbecile?’

      "‘Oh, no; by no means,’ I assure me. ‘It are far otherwise.’

      "‘Very well, then, Jules de Grandin,’ I inform me, ‘you would do well to take precautions.’

      "‘And by the whiskers of a pink-faced fish, I shall take them, Jules de Grandin,’ I replied to me.

      "Therefore I went up to my room and took out from my bureau drawer this shirt of chain-mail which I used to wear in Paris when the exigencies of my work took me among the so amiable apaches. They are ready workers with their knives, those ones, and more than once I have owed the preservation of my health to this little vest of steel.

      "Those ones whom I might meet tonight, I knew, could use a knife for other purposes than to cut their food, and so I did not greatly trust them. Also, lest they add magic to attempted murder, I stopped at the hotel florist’s and bought a bunch of marigolds. So I was doubly armed. Eh bien, it was as well. Their knife glanced harmlessly away when it should have pierced my gizzard; their magic-summoned tiger was foiled by my flower. It has been a wholly satisfactory night thus far, my friends. Let us take a drink and go to bed while we still have our luck."

      HOW LONG I HAD been sleeping I do not know, but it must have been some time, for the rectangle of moonlight from the window had moved perceptibly since I went to bed, and the eastern sky was showing vague streaks of slate-gray when I sat up, stark awake as though some one had slapped me while I slept. What was it? I asked myself, looking round the room in which I seemed to sense the presence of something alien, something which had no right to be there. Had I felt something, or dreamed it, or heard—

      Instinctively I held my breath, seeking to pierce the smothering half-light with straining ears. I had heard something, but what? A cry, a voice, or—

      Thin, muffled, like music issuing from a radio when the station is not accurately tuned in, I descried a queer, ululating whine, a rising, a falling, faintly surging and receding monotonous singsong; flat, raucous, metallic, like—what was it like, I asked myself, then, for some cause which had nothing to do with conscious reasoning, shuddered as recognition came to me. It was like the dismal, dolorous caterwauling of a juggler’s reed pipe when the snake-charmer lifts the basket-lid and the scaly serpents slither out to dance upon their tails! What in heaven’s name— I stammered wonderingly; but:

      "Trowbridge, mon vieux, de Grandin’s soft, insistent whisper sounded from the door, are you awake?"

      Yes, instinctively I lowered my voice in answer. What is that—

      "S-s-st, he warned. No noise, if you please; for the dear God’s sake bump into nothing when you rise. Come at once, and walk softly, if you please."

      Wondering, I obeyed, and we hastened down the hall to the chamber we had assigned to Mr. and Mrs. Anspacher.

      Again I shuddered, for no known reason, as we stopped silently before the door. Unmistakably the whining, droning hum proceeded from the guest room, and the sharp vibrance of it grated on my ears like the cacophony of a buzzing July locust.

      De Grandin’s lifted finger enjoined silence as he laid one hand on the knob and slowly, deliberately as the minute hand travels round the clock dial, began to twist the handle. The keeper slipped back with the faintest of faint clicks, and with the same slow care he pushed the white door open.

      Despite his plea for silence, I could not forbear a gasp of horror and astonishment at the scene revealed. In bed lay Edward and Madeline Anspacher, not sleeping, but very still. Twin bodies in the slumber room of a funeral home could not have lain more quietly upon their biers than these two underneath the silken coverlet; yet their eyes were open wide and both were waking—waking to a horror which was like the insupportable suspense of the poor wretch on the gallows while he waits the springing of the drop. For upon the bed’s foot, its dreadful, flattened head backed by a bloated, outspread hood, coiled a great cobra, three feet or so of scale-shod body looped upon the comforter, and three feet more upreared in the air, its forked tongue darting lambently between its thin, cruel lips, its narrow, death-charged head swinging to and fro as it bobbed and swayed and undulated to the measure of the wavering, whining, almost tuneless chant which Madeline Anspacher repeated endlessly, forcing the four quavering notes between stiffened, fear-grayed lips.

      Nearly inaudible as our advent was, the sensitive ears of the serpent warned it we had come, and for an instant it turned questioning, threatening eyes in our direction; then, as though it knew that we were there to rob it of its prey, a sort of ripple ran down its body as it flexed itself for a stroke, and we saw the wicked head draw back an inch or so, heard Madeline’s despairing scream as her chant broke off, and—

      Bang! So swiftly Jules de Grandin fired that though the first shot struck the striking cobra’s head even as it darted forward, the second bullet hit the scaly neck less than a half-inch from the wound made by the first; but the taut-drawn body of the reptile did not topple over. Instead it bent deliberately, slowly, toward the far side of the room, as though it had been pushed by an invisible prod, and the Frenchman had time to leap across the floor, draw his heavy hunting-knife and slash the gleaming body clear in two before the supple, coiling thing had fallen to the floor.

      "Parbleu, I was not sure that I had hit him for a moment, he explained. These small-bore steel-tipped bullets, they have not the striking power of the leaden ones."

      I nodded absently, for my full attention was directed toward the pair upon the bed. Madeline had fainted, and her husband lay half conscious by her side, his lips agape, his tongue against his lower teeth, a smile of semi-idiocy on his face.

      "Mon Dieu, de Grandin cried, quick, my friend! Stimulants—ether, brandy, strychnine. They are in a pitiable state!"

      They were, indeed. Hot applications and normal stimulants failing, we were forced to resort to intravenous saline infusions before our efforts were successful, and even then our patients’ state was not entirely satisfactory.

      Good thing neither of ’em had a weak heart, I muttered grimly as we worked. We’d surely have had a coroner’s case on our hands if they weren’t both so young and strong.

      U’m, de Grandin answered as he mixed the saline solution, "there will be a case for the coroner when I lay hands upon the miscreant who inserted that sacré snake into this house, you may bet yourself anything you please."

      I DON’T KNOW HOW IT happened, Madeline told us later in the day when, somewhat recovered from their profound shock, she and her husband were able to drink some broth and sit up in bed. "We didn’t go to sleep at once, for both of us were badly frightened. Karowli Singh meant mischief, we were sure. We’d seen the tiger phantom which his guru sent against us, and Doctor de Grandin had told us of the attempt on his life. He’d been checked in every move so far, but a man with his capacity for hate and his determination to get revenge wouldn’t be stopped so easily, we were certain.

      Finally, we managed to drop off, for it seemed impossible he could harm us so long as we were here; then— She paused a moment, and de Grandin helped her to a sip of sherry. "I woke up feeling something on my feet. At first I thought it might be the bed clothes tucked in too tightly, and I was about to sit up and loosen them when I felt the weight move. It wasn’t quite dawn, but it was light enough for me to make out the shape of the cobra coiling for a stroke.

      "For an instant I thought I should die with fright, but one born and reared in India knows snakes, and one reared in a temple as I was knows something of snake-charming, too. I’d seen the fakirs with their dancing snakes a thousand times, and knew the tune they played to lull the venomous things into temporary harmlessness. If I could imitate a fakir’s pipe I might be able to keep it from striking long enough for help to come, I thought, and so I began singing. It really wasn’t very much of a trick, for I knew the pipe-music as American children know popular jazz songs, and I’d imitated the jugglers’ pipes for my own amusement a hundred times.

      I don’t know how long I sang. Edward woke at the first note and I was terrified for fear he’d move and break the spell, but fortunately he understood I meant him to lie quiet when I squeezed his hand; so we lay there for what seemed years while I held the snake’s attention with my singing. Then when you finally came to help us, the sound of your entrance seemed to break the spell, and the cobra was about to strike when Doctor de Grandin shot it. Oh—she covered her face with trembling hands—I can still feel those dreadful coils harden on my feet as it contracted its muscles and braced its tail to strike!

      "Perfectly, Madame, de Grandin nodded. It was a terrible experience you had. One understands."

      WELL, WHATEVER THE TIGER was, that snake was certainly no imaginary thing conjured up by a magician, I remarked as we left the patients and went to seek a bite of luncheon.

      "Tu parles, petit, he agreed with a grin. I cremated him in the furnace this morning, and he burned as beautifully as who sent him will eventually roast in hell, I assure you."

      Karowli Singh? I asked.

      "Who else, pardieu? Who else would have snakes ready to his hand, and introduce them through your second-story windows, my friend? Me, I think I shall enjoy tweaking that one’s nose most heartily. But yes."

      ADAY IN BED WORKED wonders for our patients and by evening they were ready to go home, though de Grandin urged them to remain with us a little longer so that he might be prepared to ward off any fresh attempt upon their lives. He is a clever fellow, that one, he declared, but Jules de Grandin is cleverer. Consider: I have made a monkey out of him at every turn, and I can continue so to do. Will you not stay with us?

      Much obliged, sir, young Anspacher answered, but I think Madeline and I will go home and pack. There’s a steamer leaving for Bermuda tomorrow night, and we can make it if we hurry. I’ll feel a lot more normal when we’ve put several thousand miles of ocean between us and Karowli Singh. We may not be as lucky next time as we were last night.

      "Tiens, if you go away from me you may have no luck at all, the little Frenchman answered with a smile. You can not have de Grandin at your elbow in Bermuda."

      Guess we’ll have to take a chance on that, the young man replied, and so it was arranged.

      Shortly after dinner I drove them to their apartment in the Durham Court, and we left them with their doors fast locked and windows tightly bolted. We shall hope to see you at the ship, de Grandin said at parting. In any event, call us on the telephone tomorrow morning, and tell us how it is with you.

      He was silent through the evening, smoking cigarette after cigarette, staring abstractedly before him into the fire, muttering vague incoherencies to himself from time to time. Once or twice I sought to draw him into conversation, but met with only monosyllabic answers. At ten o’clock I rose and went to bed, for the night before had been a hard one and I felt the need of sleep acutely.

      Sometime after midnight the irritable stutter of my bedside ’phone wrenched me from the embrace of a dreamless sleep, and:

      Doctor Trowbridge, can you come right over? This is Mrs. Frierson speaking, an agitated voice announced.

      Mrs. Frierson of the Durham Court Apartments? I asked, feeling mechanically for the clothes which lay ready folded on the bedside chair.

      Yes—it’s Eleanor. Something dreadful’s happened.

      Eh? What? I answered professionally. Something dreadful, I well knew from past experience with half-hysterical mothers, might mean anything from a wrenched ankle to a case of acute appendicitis, and it was well to have the proper kit assembled ere I set out.

      Yes, yes; she’s—they tried to kidnap her, and she’s in a dreadful state!

      All right, keep her in bed with hot water bottles or an electric pad, and give her twenty drops of aromatic ammonia in a wine-glass of chilled water, I prescribed, and I hung up the ’phone and finished dressing.

      Is it Madame Anspacher perhaps? de Grandin asked, appearing abruptly at the bedroom door. I heard the night ’phone ringing, and—

      No, but it’s a girl living in the same apartment, I answered wearily. Somebody tried to kidnap her, and she’s in ‘a state,’ her mother tells me. Want to come along?

      Assuredly, he agreed. These midnight calls are often of much greater interest than at first seems likely. Await me downstairs. I shall join you immediately.

      Queer how cases seem to run in series, I commented as we drove toward Durham Court. We’ve just finished treating the Anspachers for shock; now here’s another girl, living in the same house with them, needing treatment for the same condition. They usually run in groups of three; wonder who the next one will be?

      "Parbleu, if what I damn suspect is true, perhaps it is I who shall need your kindly services," he responded with a smile.

      MISS FRIERSON’S CONDITION WAS not serious, and I found that simple treatment would suffice. Plainly, she had been badly frightened, and just as plainly she desired an appreciative audience to admire her filmy crêpe nightclothes, and listen to her story.

      I went out to Idlewild with Jack Sperry, Mabel Trumbull and Fred Spicer, she told us, "but the place was lousy; nothing doing there and nothing fit to drink, so we decided to cut it and come in town to Joe’s place. They always have good liquor there. Know the dump? Hot-cha, it’s a regular joint!

      "Well, I’d noticed another car trailing us all the way from Idlewild, keeping about the same distance from us whether we went fast or slow, and it got my Billy. Too much of this holdup stuff on the country roads these nights, and though I didn’t have anything ’specially valuable in the way of jewelry, I didn’t hanker to be mauled around by a gang o’ bandits. It’s bad enough to have to stand that sort o’ thing from your boy friend.

      "Everything was jake till we got almost to town; then our left front tire went haywire, and Jack and Fred got out to change it. Mabel and I climbed down to stretch our legs and give the boys moral support, and while we stood there the other car came roaring up like an engine going to a three-alarm fire. They stopped so short the gravel shot in all directions from their wheels, and some of it hit me in the face. Next thing I knew they’d grabbed me and dragged me into their car and were off again, starting in high and running like a streak of greased lightning.

      One of ’em threw a bag or something over my head, so I couldn’t see who had me or which way we were going, but I managed to struggle till I could look down under the folds of cloth around my head and catch a glimpse of the hands that held me. It was a colored man.

      "Mordieu, a colored man, you say, Mademoiselle?" de Grandin asked softly.

      Yes, she replied, and all the rest of ’em were colored, too.

      The rest?

      "Yes. They drove like Lord-knows-what for half an hour or so—we must have covered twenty miles at least—and finally brought up at an old and apparently deserted house. I was peeping between the folds of the cloth over my head as much as I could, and my brain was fairly active, noting all the landmarks, for I was bound I’d make my getaway at the first opportunity, and I wanted to know which way to run.

      They hustled me down a dark hall and flung me into a little room not much bigger than a closet. I felt around the walls and made sure there was no window in the place, then sat down on the floor to think things over. Almost before I realized it they were back—three of ’em—and I saw I’d been mistaken in my first guess. They weren’t Negroes, but some sort of dark-skinned foreigners—Turks or something.

      "Eh, Turks, you say, Mademoiselle? de Grandin interjected. How is it that you—"

      "Well, maybe they weren’t Turks, they might have been Arabs or something like that. All I know is that they were almost as dark as colored men, except that they were more coffee-colored than chocolate-tinted, and they all wore turbans, and when they talked to each other it sounded like smashing china.

      Two of ’em grabbed me and the other one put his nose almost against mine and said something that sounded like ‘carbarn,’ or—

      "Dieu de Dieu! de Grandin ejaculated. Kurban!"

      Maybe that was it, the girl conceded. "I wasn’t paying much attention to exact pronunciation right then; I had other things to think of.

      "‘Look here, you,’ I told the man who spoke to me, ‘if you think you can get away with this you’re mighty much mistaken. My uncle’s an alderman, and you’ll have the whole Harrisonville police force on your necks before morning if you don’t turn me loose at once!’

      "That seemed to sober him, all right, for he looked surprised and said something to the fellows who had hold of me. I guess he was asking ’em if they thought I told the truth, and I guess they said they did, for they weren’t so rough with me after that, though they didn’t let me go. Instead they took me down the hall to a room where a little, undersized pip squeak was sitting cross-legged on a pile of pillows. He looked as though he’d just come off second best in a bout with a first-class scrapper, too, for his lips were cut and both eyes blackened, and there were two or three bruises on his cheeks.

      "Just the same, there was something terrifying about him. I can’t remember being really scared of anything since I was a little girl and lay awake in the nursery waiting for the goblins to come and grab me, and—I had just that sort of all-hot-and-weak-inside feeling when I looked into that little dark-skinned fellow’s eyes. They were a sort of agate-gray, like the eyes of a bad white man set in an evil mulatto’s face, and something seemed to chill me to the bone. It seemed as though his two eyes melted into one, and that one grew and grew till it was as big as the ocean, and the more I tried to look away the more I had to stare at them. All of a sudden I felt myself on my knees—can you imagine? Me on my knees to a little half-portion brown-faced man, sobbing and trembling and so scared I couldn’t speak!

      "He looked at me for what seemed like a year, got up and came over to me and put my hair back, examining my ears, looking at ’em and feeling ’em—as if I were a horse or something—then he turned and laced it into those three fellows who had brought me. I couldn’t understand a word he said, of course, but from his tone I knew he was giving ’em the cussing of their lives, and they crouched there and took it like whipped dogs.

      After that they took me out, put me in the car again and blindfolded me, and the next thing I knew I was out on the sidewalk, right before my own door. Can you imagine?

      "Eh bien, Mademoiselle, one can imagine very well indeed; exceedingly, well, de Grandin assured her. You are a most fortunate young lady."

      AS WE DROVE HOME he asked suddenly, apropos of nothing: Does Mademoiselle Frierson remind you of any one you know, by any chance, my friend?

      H’m, can’t say she—by George, yes! I answered. There’s a slight resemblance between her and Madeline Anspacher. They’re about of a size, and both pronounced brunettes, and—

      Assuredly, he acquiesced. One might easily mistake one for the other if one knew neither of them well, especially if the light were indifferent.

      Then you think Karowli Singh’s servants abducted Eleanor Frierson by mistake, thinking she was Madeline?

      Perfectly. One suspects the fox when his poultry disappears, my friend.

      Well, then, why did the rajah, for I suppose it was he to whom she was taken, examine her ears?

      "Tiens, to see if they were, or ever had been pierced, of course, he answered in a tone of patient resignation. Madame Anspacher has lived some time in America; time and different environment and Western clothes might make a big difference in her looks, but the earring holes bored in her lobes, the holes in which great loops of gold hung for nearly all her life, could not be hidden, neither could they have healed. Indeed, she still wears studs in her ears, as I observed last night. Mademoiselle Eleanor’s ears have never been pierced for rings. I satisfied myself of that while we interviewed her."

      And that ‘car-barn’ or whatever it was her captor said to her—what does that mean? I asked.

      "Kurban is a Hindoo word denoting human sacrifice, he answered, a sacrifice at which the victim, in order to attain forgiveness for sins committed in this or a prior incarnation, offers herself voluntarily to death."

      Good heavens, then— I stopped aghast at the implication his words had raised.

      Precisely, exactly, quite so, he answered in a level, toneless voice. You apprehend me perfectly, my friend.

      NORA MCGINNIS, MY HIGHLY efficient household factotum, has a knack of securing her own way. Devout Catholic that she is, she would as soon think of strangling a sleeping infant in its crib as of eating meat on Friday, or (though I am a vestryman in the Episcopal Church and a past potentate of the Shrine) permitting me to do so. Accordingly, the next morning de Grandin and I found the table set with baked bloaters and waffles when we descended to the breakfast room.

      "Hélas, I am worried, I am apprehensive and distrait, I can not eat; I have no appetite, me, the little Frenchman told me dolorously as he pushed away his thrice-replenished plate and drained his fourth cup of well-creamed coffee. Behold, it is already after nine o’clock and Monsieur Édouard has not yet telephoned. I fear for their safety, my friend. That Karowli Singh, he is a rascal of the finest brew. I know him. He is altogether and decidedly no good. While I served as captain in the army of his late and unlamented papa I had abundant opportunity to observe the present maharajah of Dhittapur, then a charming little coffee-colored brat who sadly needed cuffing. I have seen him torture helpless animals for pure love of cruelty; have a peacock plucked alive or a leopard’s claws and teeth pulled out before he fought the poor beast with his sword, prodding it repeatedly with his steel until he wearied of the sport and had the maimed and helpless thing thrown to his savage dogs or clubbed to death by his grooms. Eh bien, yes; I know him, and I should dearly love to twist his nose."

      He lighted a cigarette and blew a twin column of smoke through his nostrils toward the ceiling. Unless they telephone soon, he began, but the cachinnating summons of the ’phone bell cut him short, and he hastened to the farther room to answer it.

      But certainly, I heard him reply to the caller’s query. "And how is Madame—mon Dieu, you can not mean it! But certainly, right away, at once; immediately.

      Come, my friend, he bade as he rejoined me in the breakfast room, let us hasten, let us rush, let us fly with all expedition!

      Where—

      To those Durham Courts. She—Madame Anspacher—has gone away, vanished, evaporated completely.

      Edward Anspacher met us in the foyer of his apartment, wonder and apprehension struggling for mastery of his features. We were both pretty well tired with packing and making preparations for our trip, he told us, "and I think Madeline fell asleep at once. I know I did. I was so tired I overslept, for I remember distinctly that the clock was striking nine when I woke up with a raging toothache.

      Madeline was sleeping peacefully as a child and I hated to disturb her; so I got up quietly as possible and went into the bathroom for some aspirin. I couldn’t have been five minutes, altogether, but when I came back she was gone, and my toothache had stopped as suddenly as it began.

      U’m? de Grandin murmured. "You have been suffering with mal de dents recently, Monsieur?"

      No. My teeth are exceptionally healthy, and I’d finished my semi-yearly visit to the dentist last week. He told me there wasn’t a sign of a cavity or diseased root anywhere; in fact, all he did was clean them. Why I should have had that sudden ache is more than I can—

      But it is no mystery to me, my friend, the Frenchman interrupted. I damn think it was the same sort of toothache that the tiger which frightened good Friend Trowbridge was a beast—a juggler’s trick, by blue!

      The room was in confusion. Two wardrobe trunks, one a man’s, one a woman’s, stood on end by the

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